@soulofmonk Those old RPM's are fantasy numbers for me. I'm in about 55% US/UK traffic and my RPM's are sub $1 now and falling. Currently using AdSense Auto Ads.

The blocking of third party cookies has now rolled out to 1% of Chrome users (as of Jan 4).

[developers.google.com...]

As per previously announced plans, Chrome is restricting third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome users to facilitate testing, and then ramping up to 100% of users from Q3 2024. The ramp up to 100% of users is subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns of the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

As of 4th January 2024, Chrome has started restricting third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome browsers. It may take several days to reach the full 1%.

So it looks like the shift to contextual-only has officially begun (just 1% of users, so far) and we'll all be serving an increasing number of contextual-only ads from now until 3Q 2024.

Just in case the CPM-only thing wasn't bad enough...

Happy 2024.

@Senechal, FYI Google to Start Cookie-Less Test of 1pct of Chrome Browser Users [webmasterworld.com]

Today so far:

7k views - 140 clicks

I know you guys been using Adsense for a long time and with Adsense comes taxes! If you’re pretty knowledgeable on how to go about taxes as a writer, private message me. I have a small question about if I’m able to deduct something.

@MMedi26, talk to an accountant. The last thing you want is to run afoul of the IRS because you got non-professional, incorrect tax advice.

@ember thank you! I believe it was just a simple question, nothing too crazy. I researched it a lot and got answers but just wanted y’all perspective as well since we all talk here.

Worst RPM I've had since 2011 was today.

Yesterday my CPM bids jumped to almost 40%, today up to 50%, the transition is on folks.

Weird numbers again! I had a 20% increase in page views yesterday because school was back in session, but a 10% decrease in revenue from the previous 3 days. There’s no rhyme or reason to these numbers lately.

Very annoyed with today numbers. The early morning hours (2am) I had a $10 RPM. Now at around (9am), I’m sitting at a $5 RPM. It dropped $5 in the span of 7 hours. Adsense is very disappointing at the moment.

For me, it almost seems like Adsense says, "How much did you make last year? OK, I can't let you get too much above or below that number." If I start doing really good, they pull back on the ads the next few days.

The blank ad spots, low CPC and lack of clicks might be due to low CPC inventory as CPM bids increase.

@gatormark this is exactly why I don’t trust them to optimize ads, they’re not genuinely wanting to help us make the most we can make.

I started using Facebook reels to make money as well. It’s not anything like Adsense but it’s a great add when things are low at Adsense.

The last couple of days have been the absolute worst - the worst of all-time. RPM is on the floor, impressions down, CTR down, and it looks like the number of CPM ads are rising every day so i suppose this is the start of the big changeover.
If it stays like this then adsense is coming off

Maybe it's a slow rollout on G's part as CPC is still dominant for me versus CPM, by a considerable margin.

Well, for me the payment is going down really fast.
Is there any holiday in the US?

This is unreal. I do not understand. 'Serving 6 figures of pageviews per day and making $60-70 on majority US traffic. WTAF Google?

I've stuck with Google through catastrophic algo changes, poorly coded Auto Ads nonsense, AdSense's absurd hit to CWV, and through their ridiculously buggy GDPR consent... but this... this is just broken now.

Now they're failing at the core mission of AdSense: Website monetization.

I hate working with other advertising platforms as the ad quality is terrible... but that's where we're at now.

I'll stick it out to the end of the month, but I'm afraid AdSense may no longer be a viable option.

Terrible traffic terrible earnings. :(

I’m actually not doing too bad. It could be worse.

Just nasty here today, traffic and earnings.

My revenue this week is beating the first week of 2024 that’s for sure.

After tweaking the ads on my sites, I’m now getting 80+% active view viewable on each of my sites on a continuous basis without moving or removing any ads instead of lower 70% before. Hopefully this will account for something when things change over.

@allhearts what did you tweak?

CPC in January, especially this week, is very low between 0.13$ and 0.15$. If I compare it with the past months where it was between 0.17$ and 0.23$, then I have no reason for optimism.

@MMedi26
placed the ad codes inside a lazy load code without modifying the actual ad codes.

@allhearts sounds promising, let us know if it works.

I’m wishing the Facebook traffic was consistent. My traffic is usually on the higher end on Friday’s but this weekend, it’s starting off lower than usual.

@allhearts "placed the ad codes inside a lazy load code without modifying the actual ad codes."

What method do you use? Can you DM me?

I now use only a Adsense anchor ad on each page, which also gives me high active view viewable of 92.36%. But maybe I want to switch to 1 or 2 ads in the content.